


Madness Most Discreet

by StudioRat



Series: Nor Shall Death Brag [1]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Bad Parenting, Canon Temporary Character Death, Canon Typical Violence, Demiromantic Link, Depression, Fate & Destiny, Game Spoilers, Heroic burden, Multi, Noble Sacrifice, Post-Canon, Reincarnation, Suicidal Ideation, Talking Trees, Temporary Character Death, Underage Drinking, boy is like the posterchild for Hold My Beer, even Zelda scolds him for courting death so it’s practically canon, expectation, i mean it IS Link we’re talking about here, idiot in love, implied sexual activity offscreen, in the recklessness sense, lots of death all the death most of it canon, no beta we die like men, slow burn?, why are you giving a child a sword stoppit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-15 21:33:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19304248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StudioRat/pseuds/StudioRat
Summary: It is written that when Hyrule has need, a hero will rise.It is written that the motherline of Zeldas bear a rare and sacred power.It is the nature of mortal hearts to seek patterns in chaos, answers in stars.It is in the nature of both order and chaos that they must bow before love.





	1. Lost Woods

**Author's Note:**

> Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;  
> Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;  
> Being vexed, a sea nourished with loving tears.  
> What is it else? A madness most discreet,  
> A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s another blupee. I don’t know. What is my brain. 
> 
> Apparently I’ve had this in my head for a while and it decided it wanted out NOW.

Embers float in ash-blue mist, and the gnarled lifeless limbs of a hundred shattered trees reach their sharp, thorny fingers after intruders. Bones and rags hang from many, silent testament to the ill fates of other travelers. Most people are afraid of the Lost Woods. They fear to wander forever. They fear they will never return home. They fear to become cursed stal. They fear death.

Link does not.

Of all possible consequences for defeating the royal weaponsmaster in a public spar, being sent into the Lost Woods alone was the greatest he could have ever wished for.

He is disappointed when the mists thin and the wind leads him into an evergreen meadow. He throws his torch down on the path, but the flame simply goes out. It does not spark a wildfire. He stares at the blackened dirt, empty.

Hollow rattling noises approach through the undergrowth. Link waits for the monsters to attack, but the only thing that happens is more rattles gather around him.

In the end though, his curiosity gets the better of him. He is only seven, and discipline is much harder when he doesn’t have a clear task to attend.

Link does not know what he expected to see, but a hundred leaves with brushstroke faces on a hundred fat saplings no higher than his waist was definitely not it.

“Hello,” says Link softly.

“HE CAN SEE US,” cry the saplings to each other, rattling madly.

“This isn’t what they say the land of the dead looks like,” says Link, looking about the peaceful meadow. The dappled golden light of afternoon plays softly through the lush undergrowth, and phosphorescent beanpods line the winding path.

“Oh! Were you going there? Did you lose your way mister?” One of the ginkgo-leaf saplings waddles forward, holding a green walking stick with tiny round leaves sprouting off the sides.

“Maybe,” says Link with a shrug. “They want me to look for something, but they didn’t tell me what.”

“You should come see the Great Deku then. I bet he knows. He knows almost everything.”

The other saplings agree, rattling their heads vigorously.

Link fidgets. “It’s ok. I didn’t really want to find it. I don’t want to bother anyone.”

“No bother,” says the ginkgo-lead , turning to gesture down the path. “The Great Deku takes care of us. He likes helping. We like helping too, but we’re not so good at it. Follow me, I will show you where he stands.”

Link follows, mostly because he cannot think of anything else to do, and he does not like being still. The other saplings follow him, a whole parade of curious rattling.

The path opens on a clearing before a tree bigger than Link ever imagined a tree could be.

“Welcome, hero. Come closer - my eyes are not what they once were,” said the tree.

Link stares, mouth agape as the shadows in the bark form an enormous face. His mother would have teased him about catching flies. Thinking of her makes him ashamed of his bad manners, and he drops his gaze.

He sees the sword.

He faints.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Link awakens in a dark place, surrounded by the scent of green. He blinks at the shadows, trying to name the smells like his teachers ask in lessons, but he can’t. He knows he is laying on leaves, and his blanket is made of more leaves almost as big as he is, stitched together with delicate smooth cords like tiny chokevine tendrils. The side of the blanket touching his skin is layered with silky petals, and poking the leaves under him reveals even more petals.

“I don’t understand,” says Link to the darkness.

An excited rattle is all the warning he gets before a curtain is drawn back with a rustle of grass and leaves. “Good morning Mister Hero. I hope you had good dreams!”

Link sits upright, scrubbing sleep-sand from his eyes. “I didn’t dream at all.”

“Oh,” says the sapling sadly, drooping with a sorrowful trill. “I didn’t build the bed right for humans.”

“It's a nice bed. You did fine. It’s a good thing, not dreaming,” says Link, pulling himself out of the strange bed.

“Oh! Yay!” The sapling brightens at once. “Are you hungry Mister Hero? The Great Deku says people need to eat many times every day.”

“Sure,” says Link, wondering what talking saplings eat. “My name’s Link. And I’m not old enough to be a mister. Do you have a name?”

“I’m Pepp. Walton found apples for you Mister Hero, and Daz picked up all the acorns and chickaloo nuts he could find. Natie gathered lots of mushrooms and berries, and even brought some back. We hope you like them.”

“Mom says eating acorns without grinding and cooking first will make me sick,” says Link, stretching. He is still wearing the same tunic and trousers as yesterday, and wonders if it’s still rude to do that when there’s no other people around. He does not have to wonder what she will say about the grass stains.

“That’s ok, Mister Hero. The Great Deku helped us make a fire for you. And Damia made you a spoon too!”

Link sighs, following Pepp into the next dim little room where a small fire burns atop a bed of smooth stones, a shallow, thick-walled clay pot suspended above. He wonders if it works like the iron pots his mother uses. “Where are we? And why do you keep calling me Mister Hero? My name is Link.”

“The Great Deku,” says Pepp with a cheerful rattle, as if this explains everything. The saplings standing around the edges of the room rattle agreement and wave little leafy sticks in the air.

Link is not sure how to grind acorn flour without a crank-mill like his mother uses, or how to cook apples without a knife to cut them first. He does know the mushrooms they offer him are safe ones, but he isn’t sure how to cook them without butter or oil. He thinks about asking for eggs, but remembers he hasn’t heard any birds since yesterday, and the crows stayed in the mists.

Link considers eating things raw, but it was surely hard for people made of wood to make a fire. He doesn’t want to be ungrateful, even if he is dead. “I need water or something, since I left my knife outside the forest.”

“Oh! Kula is late - maybe the basket is too heavy. I will go help,” says one of the saplings.

Link sighs. “Maybe I should go too. I don’t have a bucket, but I still have my empty flask.”

“What’s a bucket?”

“Like a basket, but solid. Without holes I mean. So it can hold water and stuff without dripping. You don’t know much about how humans live, do you?”

“Nope! We’re all too small to go traveling yet, except Hestu. When we’re bigger, the Great Deku will give us a leaf so we can look for a place to grow roots of our own,” says Pepp, waddling along ahead of him, rattling with each step. The sapling uses the green stick to draw back the leaf curtain dividing the dim room from the gilded meadow.

The ramp down to the grass looks like gnarled roots all grown together. Because they are. And in the middle of the clearing, the dappled sunlight still reflects off a bright sword thrust through a triangular pedestal of mossy stone.

“Oh no,” says Link.

“Fear not, little one. My children are very young, but they will not harm you,” says the deep voice of the Great Deku from somewhere high above.

Link can’t tip his head back far enough to see if the face is still there in the bark without following Pepp down the root-ramp. “Oh no. They made fire inside you. That must hurt - I will go put it out - wait. I’m out of water. And I don’t have a shovel. Rocks though. Just let me get a rock and-”

The Great Deku laughs at him. “It is a long time since a mortal with so pure a heart as yours came to my forest. Do not fret - such a tiny flame does not hurt me, and will do you much good. A little breakfast will ease your weariness, Hero, and we will talk more when you are ready.”

“I’m not a hero,” mutters Link, stopping himself in the act of kicking at a clump of grass. He is surrounded by plant people, and just because he doesn’t hear a voice from the grass doesn’t mean it’s not also people. Kicking people isn’t nice. Except for during practice. Then, he will get in trouble only if he doesn’t kick as hard as he can.

The Great Deku chuckles at him. “Mortal time flows differently than for us spirits. To you, an acorn is not an oak. For old spirits like me, we can see at once which acorns are only acorns, and which are oaks.”

Link sighs, staring at his boots. “Not all oaks get tall or old though. Sometimes they get struck by lightning or eaten by worms or mistletoe or cut down for houses or fires. Can you see that too?”

The Great Deku laughs again. “That is a big question for a small boy who hasn’t any breakfast. I will grow you a bucket so you can help Kula and Pepp, and we will talk after.”

Link sighs, shoulders hunching forward until he catches sight of the little knob rising from the root-ramp, shifting and stretching until it takes the form of a bucket standing on a slender stick, complete with a twisted rootlet handle. “Doesn’t that hurt? Won’t it hurt when the stick breaks?”

“Does it hurt when you climb a hill, little one?”

“Sometimes,” says Link with a frown, walking around the bucket-fruit-root-thing.

“The next time you climb a hill, is it easier?”

“A little, if it’s not right away,” confesses Link.

“I have grown many things, and broken many branches to grow new ones, as you have climbed many hills and grown stronger. Take it, and with it my blessing,” says the Great Deku.

“Ok,” says Link, but mostly because his stomach is rumbling.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Link folds himself on a warm rock with his back towards the sword pedestal. He can still feel it looming, even when he’s in a different clearing, or even inside the Great Deku. Just like he can feel his father and his teachers and the King watching him. It is like carrying stones on his back, and it is like fishhooks in his skin, and it is like courser bees swarming inside his head.

“It’s ok to not be ready yet,” says Oaki, rattling his maple-leaf head.

“But I don’t want to be a hero at all,” says Link, cheeks hot with shame. “I wanted to be lost in the mists forever so they can’t make me.”

“The enchanted mists only snare the doubtful hearts, the greedy, the cowardly, the hearts that seek for the wealth or approval of another. Your desire to exchange your world for the timeless spirit realm is pure, little one, unlocking the path to my woods and what you need most. The men who wait for you at the woodland gate have hopes and fears about your trials, but those things belong to them. They cannot decide your path or fate,” says the Great Deku gently, his voice filling the forest.

“Yeah they can. They can make me fight just because I’m good at it.  They can make me live in castletown or a garrison instead of the village. They can make me do whatever they want. I didn't come here alone - they brought me here.”

“They brought you to the gate, little one. Walking through it and into my forest was you following the cry of your spirit,” says the Great Deku. “Do not rush ahead to where you think you are supposed to be. Follow the same song that brought you here, and you will find yourself where you need to be, when you need to be there.”

Link rolls his lip between his teeth, thinking about that. He decides it would be nice if that was true. “But what about the sword?”

“She will wait for you,” says the Great Deku. “Not every hero who stands in this place chooses her path.”

Link stares up at the colossal guardian tree. He is getting used to the sight, and finds a strange comfort in imagining the Great Deku’s face is kind. “There are others like me?”

The Great Deku chuckles. “You ask many big questions for such a small boy. Yet the world you know outside is at peace, your mortal nations in accord.”

“The King says there is a prophecy,” confessed Link.

“Oh,” says the Great Deku sadly, his bark brows and moustache drooping. “Not again.”

“What is it? Do you know what it means? Does it mean I have to be a knight?”

The Great Deku says nothing for a long time.

Link waits, listening to the soft rattle of the koroks waiting with him.

“I will meditate on this. The forest is your home as long as you wish. Step onto the stone pedestal when you have need of me, and I will awaken.”

“Oh,” says Link, trying to hide his disappointment.

“Yay! Mister Hero gets to stay with us,” cry the Koroks. “Come play with us, Mister Hero. Teach us hero games and we’ll teach you forest games. It will be wonderful.”

“Ok,” says Link, watching the face of the Great Deku grow still and seem to fade into his bark. He hopes the guardian tree will meditate forever.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Time moves strangely in the forest, always afternoon and twilight, always at the edge of summer and fall. Never morning, never night, never winter. Sometimes Link comes to the edge of the light and hears the strange music of the mists beyond. He often wonders if he climbs over the boundary roots to follow that song, if he will find the land of the dead after all.

He always hesitates, remembering how the mists led him to the Korok forest in the first place. It will be embarrassing if he leaves only to be led back again. He is also pretty sure the Koroks will be sad if they know he wanted to leave.

Link does not like making people sad. He doesn’t really want to leave their lovely forest either. It is a nice place, and the forest children are kind to him. Their mischief is innocent and their games are sweet and their earnest efforts to make fun puzzles and target challenges and races for him makes him smile even to think of.

They will not understand that he doesn’t want to be anywhere at all. They will think their gifts of wooden sword and wooden bow and wooden shield and forest fruits and clothes made of forest plants have made him unhappy. They have only known the peace and joy of their own forest, and Link does not want to take that away from them.

He doesn’t know how to explain that he isn’t unhappy. It’s just that things would be easier if the mist had taken him away, since the mist didn’t take the heavy emptiness away either.

Every day he walks past the shining sword.

Every day he makes the choice to leave her where she stands, waiting for a worthy soul to bear her in the eternal war of the Light against the Dark.

 

~*~*~*~

 

One morning, Chio mentions in passing that he’s glad Link hasn’t touched the sword yet. He shakes his ginkgo head and says it is sad when someone tries who isn’t ready, and he hopes their games will help Link be stronger than any of them.

Link waits until twilight, when the Koroks mostly like to drowse in the flowers or watch fireflies, and the mood of the whole forest grows somnolent. He sneaks over the line of weathered stones dividing the meadow from the three-sided platform with its three sided pedestal. He lays enormous korok leaves on the stone, watching the Great Deku for any sign that he notices.

Nothing happens.

Link takes his boots off. He tiptoes over the leaves, holding his breath.

Nothing happens.

Link reaches for the bright, deadly steel.

“You are wise to see her true purpose, little one. Many do not,” says the Great Deku softly.

Link decides the Sheikah must have secret magics for sneaking. He stands, staring up into the kind face of the Great Deku. “I don’t mind though. It’s better for everyone this way, so they can find the real hero the prophecies talk about.”

“Why are you so certain you are not a hero, little one?”

Link frowns at the soft twilight. “Heroes are strong and bold and dashing and clever. I’m not any of that - and my parents are the shortest people in the whole village so I’m not even going to be tall, ever.”

The Great Deku does not laugh. He makes a humming sound like grownups do when they’re talking about serious things.

“I’ve met real heroes. Not just royal knights. Zoras and Gorons and Rito - it’s all the same with them. I don’t know how I do stuff on the drillfield and dueling ring, it just happens. I’m no better than anyone else with plain targets. I’m not smart or bold or fearless, and I don’t like everyone watching all the time for me to mess up,” says Link, scuffing his bare toes against the cool stone.

“Brave actions have little to do with true courage. The blessed sword is not a thing to be handled lightly. To bear her is to choose death. All mortals die - heroes sooner than most,” says the Great Deku. “No one may wield her who is not ready and willing to strike a killing blow with her might, and no one may bear her who is not ready to lay down their life for what is good, and true, and bright.”

“I don’t want to kill anybody,” whispers Link, ashamed that he is on the verge of tears to admit it.

“It is that very purity of heart that opened the labyrinth of the mists to you, little one. Desire and willingness are very different. The last hero to bear the blessed sword brought her to me with these words for you: _the sword that seals the darkness is only a creation of Light in the way of a groundstrike or a wildfire or the fury of noon in the sand sea. Her purpose begins and ends with destroying whatever stands before her. She does not possess mercy or compassion or justice. I choose life, and before all the gods who ever were, I pray it is never necessary for another to choose death instead.”_

Link frowns, turning those ancient words over in his mind. To his surprise, the Great Deku lets him be. Does not push him to answer quickly. Does not ask him to find words for the feeling in his chest. He can hear the distant rattling of Koroks, but they don’t seem anxious, so he decides they must not be watching him.

“The King wouldn’t tell the royal knights to look for a hero without a good reason. I don’t want anyone to get hurt because of thinking it’s me,” says Link, turning to face the terrible sword.

The Great Deku says nothing.

Link draws a deep breath, and lays his hand on the winged crossguard.

Nothing happens.

He wraps his other around the cold grip. At first, it is the same. He pours the tiniest bit of effort into his hand, tugging against the fastness of stone and maybe of magic.

He pants for breath as though he’s run across the drillfield in midwinter. His arm begins to burn like he’s straining to lift his father’s armor. The sword does not budge.

Link braces his bare foot against the pedestal, pulling harder. He feels as though a village goat has kicked him in the chest. He feels like he’s climbing the cliff behind the village without eating breakfast or lunch. He is not sure if the sword is vibrating or if he is.

Link pulls harder.

It hurts more than anything he’s ever known or imagined. He does not let go. He wonders if the dead ever regret dying, or if that is a curse the gods reserve for the living.

The pain fades, leaving an empty tingling numbness behind.

He thinks incongruously of sunrise after a hard rain.

He stumbles.

He gulps air, dizzy and confused.

Dappled sunlight gathers on the steel in his hand until it glows, but he hears neither song nor voice from her. Not even when he lifts her skyward in baffled salute.

“You said only real heroes can touch it and live.”

“Even so, the sword that seals the darkness has chosen you to bear her into battle. Perhaps it will make bearing her easier if you imagine that you are already dead, and it is only that your body does not understand this yet.”

Link considers this, testing the balance of the ancient, goddess-blessed sword. It is nearly as tall as he is. It should be heavy. It isn’t.

“I saw a cucco escape the butcher once, even though its head was already off. Maybe the goddess only wants the sword to leave the forest, and one cucco is as good as another.”

The Great Deku laughs. “Maybe it is so. Or maybe you will grow up to become the Light that saves the world from Darkness once again.”


	2. Hyrule Castle

The ride to Hyrule Castle is quiet. The knights try not to stare, but they all know the sword that seals the darkness. The blessed sword appears in nearly every fable and legend - no Hylian could look on it and not know it immediately. Even his father does not say much to him, and looks at him as if the boy beside him is a stranger. 

Link feels tired all over. Only one day passed in the human world while he lived for months - maybe years - among the forest children. He wonders if he will see any of the koroks again. He decides it would be nice to have a nap. 

Link keeps his head high and his back straight. They think he is a hero, now more than ever before, just because of the sword. Heroes do not slouch in the saddle. They do not worry about things - and even if they do, they don’t let anyone see it. They do not ask when lunch is, though with every league behind them it is harder.

The others fall silent when the training camp comes into view. Where bright banners should fly above the walls, there are only bare poles. Link’s father points to a hill beside the road. The others nod. They ready their lances and spears, forming square around Link. One of the older knights makes a hand signal Link is not supposed to see, and the others nod. He salutes Link’s father - and Link - and kicks his horse into a flat run downhill, toward the open gate.

The others remain at alert, ready to run from whatever has taken the banners down. They are afraid. 

Link is not.

The dead have nothing to fear anymore.

 

~*~*~*~

 

The older knight returns with twelve others, all of them wearing a black sash and armband over their livery and armor, half of them leading fresh horses. Everyone but Link exchanges their mount for fresh, and the knights speak in low tones, arraying themselves in black sashes and armbands. Link’s father helps him with a sash also, his eyes damp with the threat of tears. He does not explain anything. 

Someone important is dead.

Link prods at the emptiness inside him, watching the others struggle with their grief.

They gallop flat out the rest of the way to Castletown, leaving the road after Helmshead Bridge to cut across the Forest Park and thunder across Boneyard Bridge. The east gates by the cathedral open for them, and royal guardsmen with black boots instead of white, and black tabards and caps over their chainmail wait in the cathedral square with fresh horses. Black ones. They make Link get down from Darcy this time, and put him on a great black bay with feathered hooves. They ride ahead and behind of the square around Link, directly for the castle gates. 

Townspeople come out of their houses and shops to watch.

Most of them are crying.

 

~*~*~*~

 

The King is enormous.

Link takes a knee like his father and the knights do when they walk into the sanctuary at the heart of the castle. He tries to bow his head like the others, but it is distracting, how enormous the King is. He’s seen the King at a distance before, on holidays and at tournaments, but he always thought the King was taller because he was standing while everyone else sat, or maybe his advisors were just short.

The King steps down from the dias at the north side of the sanctuary, draped in black and purple, wearing no other jewels but a gold pectoral chain with the royal crest. His hazel eyes are reddened with weeping, and his deep voice is raw and rasping when he orders Link’s father to stand, and speak with him.

The princess remains on the dias, wearing a purple gown edged in black silk. She wears strange gold filigree bracelets over the slender cuffs of the black undergown, and her pale face betrays no emotion whatever. She is a year younger than him, and beautiful in the way of a wild horse, ready to bolt or kick your face in, and her cold green eyes say she hasn’t decided which she prefers yet.

Link tries to remember he is supposed to be looking at the floor in the presence of the royal family.

The King says his name.

“Sire,” says Link, uncertain if he is supposed to stand up or wait for the King to tell him.

“Come here, my boy. Show me that sword you carry.”

Link feels stupid for not understanding at once. He obeys, drawing the bundled sword from the improvised harness his father made and unwinding his scarf from the deadly steel.

The King does not touch it. 

Link waits for someone to tell him what he is supposed to do next.

“Do you know what the gods have given you, my boy?”

Link nods.

“The holy books and histories all agree that in Hyrule’s time of need, a hero will rise to bear the sword that seals the darkness. I fear that with the loss of our beloved queen, that time of need is upon us. Prophecy speaks of a primal evil that rises in hatred to destroy the beloved of Hylia. The sword you bear was forged for this very battle. From this day forward, you must train with singular purpose and unswerving devotion to your duty, chosen of the sword.”

Link bows.

The King ruffles his hair, his enormous hand covering Link’s entire head, and summons a servant to take measurements of the blade with a bright cord, speaking with his father the whole time about his education and where he should live and whether it would be a distraction to have family at the castle or if Link should train alone. Link is tired of standing still, and his attention drifts to the princess again. He wonders how she can bear to stay still so long, and what she is thinking about.

Her green eyes light on him as he wonders, and her perfect serenity slips for a moment. He sees her hatred. He isn’t sure why she is mad at him, but she is not afraid of him, and that is somehow easier to bear than the way everyone else whispers about what it means that the legendary sword has chosen to return to the mortal world.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Link stands in the hall outside the room that connects the Princess’ tower to the rest of the outer castle, and questions the wisdom of his King. He fidgets with the black harness and simple black sheath the royal armorers have made for him to carry the blessed sword with until a real sheath can be made. His new black boots are too big, and the doubled socks to help the boots slip less are hot. His black tunic itches.

The hall is silent, and none of the servants bother him when they walk by on their own chores. Link stares at the closed door, trying to make himself obey the King’s order to present himself to the princess. Link doesn’t understand why he should, when she saw him in the sanctuary just fine.

He tries to imagine how he would feel if  _ his _ mother was the one who died.

Link takes the sheathed sword from his back, and turns about to rest it against the ground before him, like his father does with  _ his _ sword when he is on duty.

At midnight the door opens behind him.

“Why are you still here? Go away,” says the princess coldly.

“The King sent me,” says Link. He does not say the other part, that he is supposed to be her friend just because they are close in age and he will live in the castle all the time now.

“Well I don’t care. I don’t need pity from anyone, least of all  _ you _ ,” she snaps. She slams the door. The lock clicks.

Link remains in parade rest outside her door, wondering how he is supposed to comfort anyone, let alone her. His feet are tired. He decides it is ok to lean against the wall when no one is around to see.

He wakes up in the quiet hours of false dawn, scrunched into the shallow corner where a pilaster meets the wall beside the princess’ locked door. He peers at the lock, but the tumblers are still blocking the light, saying it is still locked. He is stiff and cold and tired. He decides to go outside to clear his head in the crisp breeze and look for water to wash his face.

The King is walking alone on the path below.

Link scrubs his face on the hem of his tunic and hurries to catch up. He is embarrassed that he failed the task he was given. He is not sure what he will say if the King lets him speak, but he knows he cannot lie.

In the end, the King does not ask him anything, or need him to answer. He speaks of the late Queen by her first name. He speaks of the accident. He says he wishes he could have been there when it happened, that he has asked the gods every hour for weeks why no one could stop it. He confesses he often wakes at midnight to the impression that she lays beside him, and he confesses that he lingers in that illusion when it comes, and he confesses that he weeps when the illusion shatters. He weeps when he speaks of carrying her shrouded body to the pyre, and her ashes to the high holy sanctum above the castle. He stares at the sunrise and wishes that she would appear in the blinding rays and return to his side.

Link walks behind his King and listens. He understands when the King speaks of needing to conquer the grief before he can face the Council, that he must be strong and steady. He is confused when the King speaks of his six-year-old daughter as an inspiration, admiring her perfect, valiant stoicism. He finds himself on the edge of anger when his King swears never to let Zelda see his own grief for the Queen, lest she be distracted from her spiritual training.

The King reclaims his composure by the time they reach the foot of his own tower, and he dismisses Link to his rest, praising his loyalty.

Link stands in the garden, watching the sun climb through the vault of the sky, trying to imagine what the Great Deku would say about the things he’s learned.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Link trains with the royal guard. He stands still for the armorers to measure him for his own chainmail. He helps his mother carry boxes and crates into their new rooms in one of the buildings near the first gatehouse. He watches the Gerudo envoy avoid everyone except the princess, dazzled by the elaborate costume and bright red mass of hair crowning their amazingly tall chief. He sees Zelda walking beside the Gerudo chief in the gardens, and he is glad to see them attend her when she leaves the castle.

He is less glad when they go home to their own country, and Zelda travels with only her servants and guards and a few Sheikah.

He practices at every station of the day. He studies strategy and tactics and maps of every part of Hyrule and neighboring lands. He has lessons from Sheikah warriors in how to be more sneaky, and how to climb impossible things. He has lessons from royal gardeners and alchemists and chefs on how to find and cultivate and harvest things and turn them into food and medicine. He practices archery until his shoulder aches, and then he practices with his grip reversed the next day. He learns to fight with spears and staffs and shields.

Link often finds the King walking restlessly in the gardens at dawn. He decides to make a habit of practicing forms near the King’s Walk, because it seems to help his King be more content when he does. He wonders if Zelda speaks to her Sheikah friends the way the King speaks to him, but he doubts it.

Sometimes he stands in her garden or below her tower, guarding her research from interruption. Sometimes she interrupts herself to tell him to go away.

The day he is called to the sanctuary to receive the beautiful blue-and-gold sheath from her hands in front of the King and court, he discovers he would rather count knots in the carpet than meet her cold green eyes. He prods the emptiness in his chest when the King says the embroidery on the sheath is Zelda’s work, from design to finish.

He listens to the King speak of prophecy to the court. A murmur of fear ripples through the sanctuary with the King names the enemy Calamity Ganon.

Link is not afraid.

He is curious if the real hero will show up to take the sword that seals the darkness in time to save the kingdom and all her allies.


	3. Aquame Coliseum

Seven years flow one into the next. Link rides with veteran knights when towns and garrisons across the country report monster and bandit incursions they can’t deal with alone. The Sheikah unearth more relics and machines every season, working to understand and activate them in preparation for the prophesied return of Calamity Ganon.

Link stopped counting the creatures he’s felled after the first year. He expected to feel something different after the first Yiga bandit he killed, and he thinks about that emptiness sometimes in the middle of the night. He returns to the Korok Forest every year. It is the one _actual_ lie he allows himself, telling everyone that the blessed sword needs to be cleansed and renewed on sacred ground.

He cannot stay more than a few days. It is too hard, watching so many of the Koroks hide from him. The Great Deku says they are shy by nature, but Link finds himself yearning for the mists in a way he longs for nothing else except _maybe_ the pleasure of a good meal after a long day of work.

The princess’ cold hatred remains steadfast. Rumor says she was supposed to inherit a sacred magic power, and she spends much of her time going between one holy place and another. No one ever says if there is a symbol of her power as the sword is both symbol and instrument of the death he embodies. Link watches her when their paths cross, and listens to the King talk to her and to himself. Link decides that whatever the sacred power is, she doesn’t have it.

She doesn’t want his pity, so he doesn’t offer it. She doesn’t want to talk to him, so he doesn’t ask her to. The King believes her work with the Sheikah scientists is a distraction from her true purpose, so when his training and his duty allow him time for it, he quietly stations himself between her research and the rest of the world.

No one asks him what he is doing. They assume that he is following royal orders, and they leave him alone. Which means they leave _her_ alone. The only person who ignores his silent warning is the King, who still calls him boy and ruffles his hair with an affection he would do better to show his daughter.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Link enters the colosseum on a wave of raucous cheers. Everyone is excited to watch the chosen of the sword fight in a real battle. His father stands under the arch, holding up a hand to stop him. Link shakes his head. They do not need words for this anymore. They both know the yearly exhibitions and tournaments are a sham, but the King’s orders are clear, and absolute.

His mother refuses to watch the arena fights. She understands the brutal nature of the colosseum, and she does not approve of her son throwing himself into fights for the sake of other people’s bloodlust. She understands that it is different to stand between a village and a blin raid than walking into the sands to execute seven captive blins with _style_ , to make people feel like the crown can protect them from all danger. She understands that it is different stopping a pack of people-eating moblin than drawing out a public fight so people have time to pour their passion into the conflict before he kills the beasts.

She does _not_ understand that a captive lynel is no threat to him whatever, even if one _should_ slip past his guard to smash his face under its broad hooves. He forgives her for this, because she doesn’t know he is already dead, and it would only upset her to learn.

 

~*~*~*~

 

On the second day of the exhibition, Link is warming up in the shade of a little grove to the east of the Challenger’s Gate when he notices a group of young women watching from the edge of the grove. He waves and nods. Most people are curious the first time they see the Chosen, and it is polite to greet them in return.

Most of the women giggle and blush and turn away, but one watches him with a look that makes him feel hot and cold at the same time. His flesh tightens uncomfortably, and he abandons his warmup to duck into the Challenger’s Hall to untangle himself and rearrange his gear. The discomfort does not ease, and he shrinks away from fighting with such lingering, inexplicable distraction, so he asks if the lists can be rearranged because he is hungry.

Everyone is happy to shuffle the time of everything for him, and he forces himself to eat a bowl of pumpkin soup he doesn’t want in the hopes his skin will settle down. His father comes to look for him when he doesn’t enter the arena on time. He doesn’t ask why Link needed time, but talks about trivial things. Link pretends to listen.

Eventually his flesh cooperates, and he forgets the awkwardness of the delay in the immediacy of violent bloodsport.

He is, after all, very good at it.

 

~*~*~*~

 

He remembers the visceral embarrassment at once and in full force when he sees the women standing together beside the road at twilight, after the day’s fighting is over. The bold girl with dark eyes and a tight green bodice watches him in the same hungry way as before, with much the same result. Link discovers that it is possible for a saddle to be uncomfortable in depressingly novel ways.

His father makes an idle suggestion that they stop for dinner in Aquame Hamlet instead of waiting until they reach Exchange as usual. Link does not much care either way, so long as he can buy fresh cider when they get there.

The serving maid winks and blushes at him, lingering at their table more often than anyone else’s. She wants to hear about the glorious battles from the chosen himself, and looks crestfallen when Link answers her as short and plain as possible.

When she retreats, his father chuckles, gesturing with his mug. “She’s nursing a crush on you. _You_ , my son, not the idea of a random knight.”

“Why? I don’t even know her name,” says Link in confusion.

“Do you want to?”

Link frowns. He doesn’t really, but he wouldn’t _mind_. He doubts he will remember her face by next year, if the gods don’t collect him first.

His father indicates another woman, who is smiling at every man with a sword on his hip. “Do you see the difference? Think of it like a duel. Watch their eyes, their shoulders, their hips. People will tell you with their bodies more than their tongues what they think of you, what they want from you, what they think of themselves, what they want from life.”

Link studies the maid and the woman, watching how the one blushes when she notices him watching her, and how the other giggles and smiles at everyone, him included. “What has this to do with me?”

“You’re old enough to take the full knight’s oath soon. It’s time you put some thought into these things before you’re in the middle of it and people are getting hurt.”

Link frowns, confused. “I wouldn’t fight them even if the King said to. They’re just civilians. It wouldn’t be fair. Not that _anything_ is a fair match for-”

“I saw the girl watching you this afternoon,” says his father softly. “I know you saw her too. Think about her for a minute, and about these women.”

Link stares at the table, embarrassed that his skin remembers a lot more than her eyes.

“It’s important you know the difference in them and in yourself. What you choose to do is your business, but just remember that a poor match of desire is as bad or worse than a poor match on the sparring field. Don’t look for one from the other, and don’t leave anyone else to clean up your mess if you make one. Tonight we’ll stop at the alchemist for a few things, and I expect you to keep your honor on you no matter what else you take off. Understand?”

“Ok,” says Link, even though he doesn’t.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Two days later the girl in the green bodice is waiting for him in the shade beside the stables when they arrive at the coliseum. His father nods at him, and reaches for the reins, silently offering to tend both horses. Link accepts the offer, approaching the stranger with only the barest sketch of an idea how he will ask her why she watches him. She grins at him, but it is not the kind of smile he’s noticed on a woman before. This is more like the grin of a duelist when he’s found the flaw in his opponent’s pattern.

She beckons him away toward the grove. She doesn’t offer her name. She _does_ compliment his broad shoulders.

The way she speaks makes his skin hot and cold again.

The way she walks makes walking profoundly uncomfortable for _him_.

“Sorry,” he says quietly to her back. “I’m not sure - what you could want to talk about. Being a knight isn’t as interesting as people think.”

“You don’t have to talk that much,” she says with a shrug. “But I’m curious if you’ve a girlfriend in Castletown?”

“No,” says Link.

“Boyfriend?”

“No,” says Link.

The girl turns with a swirl of skirts and an arch look. “Do you like what you see, hero?”

Link says nothing. He wishes he hadn’t left his canteen hanging on the saddle.

“Do you remember your first kiss, hero?”

Link swallows hard, not sure what to say. He’s never kissed anyone except his family, and he’s pretty sure that’s not the kind of kissing she means.

She moves closer, and her voice is low and warm. “Do you want to?”

 

~*~*~*~

 

Link is fifteen and assigned to the princess’ royal escort when he sees all four of the so-called Divine Beasts up close. He overhears a lot of complicated things about guidance stones and ancient records, and the design of competitions to find pilots for the colossal machines.

Zelda neither looks at nor speaks to him.

Mipha, on the other hand, talks to him a great deal. She’s changed since the last time he followed his father as part of a diplomatic mission to strengthen the alliance with the long-lived Zora. She was always kind, and quiet, but now she is confirmed as Crown Princess and an accomplished warrior as well as healer. Yet she is one minute shy, and the next she is cold and snappish.

She mentions a lynel sighting on Ploymus Mountain.

Link has not fought anything but his own shadow in over a week. He sets out to hunt the beast at once - but Mipha follows. He tries to persuade her to go back, warning her how dangerous angry lynel can be. This has the opposite effect he meant it to. He tries to convince her he is perfectly capable of fighting it alone. She is so horrified by this that he hesitates to tell her he has defeated three at once for a frivolous arena exposition, and a pair in the wild.

He is still trying to make her go back when he hears the telltale thump and scrape behind him. There is no more time for words, or manners. He shoves her off balance to make room to draw the sword and leaps right with a shout. He throws his weight into a tumble when he sees the beast is paying attention to him, catching an arrow to his hip. It is a grazing hit, as is the second and third. This lynel is young. Fast, reckless, difficult to predict.

 _Fun_.

Link forgets he is not alone on the wide mountain ledge, taking advantage of his opponent’s temporary daze to leap onto his back and wind his fists in his mane. The lynel bucks and roars and forgets he has an axe in his fist in his panic to fling his two-legged tormentor _off_.

They go two more rounds like this, Link toying with the beast, the beast ignorant that he lost the fight some minutes ago. As he swings up onto the lynel’s striped back a third time, he notices Mipha’s yellow eyes fixed on him in terror and awe.

It isn’t fun anymore.

Link clamps his thighs tight about the lynel’s broad barrel, and thrusts the blessed sword clean through his torso. The lynel stumbles with a new gurgle in his roar. Link withdraws the sword and tumbles free as the beast falls.

It is over.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Link bathes twice and changes into his best uniform. The emptiness clings to his bones and the filth clings to his skin. He is out of time to bathe again - the state dinner begins in ten minutes and someone will notice if the chosen of the sword that seals the darkness is the only one missing.

When he walks into the room, he notices Mipha’s yellow eyes on him. He longs for the peace of the mists when he realizes she is looking at him the way so many people do in so many villages when the royal knights arrive and people find out the chosen is among them.

But _she_ is the Crown Princess of the Lanayru Zora, and though the languages of the Zora are different from humans, she is _not_ thinking of discreet kisses and casual flirtations. Disappointing her could endanger the alliance - and what is worse - she was his friend and playmate and sometimes-healer when he was small, and he does not want to hurt her.

He is empty, except that he isn’t. He eats automatically, noticing nothing that passes his lips. He is too busy realizing that he cares about a lot of things, a lot of _people_ , far more than he thought. If the King is right, and the Calamity is imminent, a lot of people are going to die.

In the absence of a true hero, a false one is better than nothing.

Surely.


	4. Greater Hyrule

Link is almost seventeen when his King appoints him to serve as the Princess’ personal guard. Not _one of_ her guard. Her guard. Singular. To accompany her everywhere. Within the castle, on diplomatic missions, on pilgrimage to holy sites, on excavations and research visits to Kakariko and Hateno and Akkala.

Zelda’s hatred burns like the wrong end of a torch, though her mask of cold civility remains perfect as ever. Link knows the truth, and she knows the truth, and in the end all that matters is that any fight he faces, he wins. He does not need to be liked for that.

 

~*~*~*~

 

The other Champions become friends. They travel together and eat together and commiserate on the challenges of learning to pilot their colossal machines. They are good people, dedicated to the cause, and the alliance, and to their people.

Link listens to them when the Princess visits them. He listens to a lot of things. No one really _forgets_ he’s there, but after a few civilities, they ignore him. It doesn’t matter if they’re servants or nobles or Sheikah or fellow Champions. He becomes part of the background wherever Zelda is.

She hates him for it.

Her father sends for him almost every day when they’re at the castle, either in the morning before Zelda wakes or long after she’s given up on her studies for the night and finally sleeps. The King asks him many questions about Zelda - her health, her temper, her prayers, her researches. Link tells him as little as possible, letting him fill in the rest with what he wants to believe anyway. He does not _lie_. He does his duty. He protects Zelda with every skill at his command, against every threat to her health or happiness.

Link does not understand much about the mysterious hereditary magic Zelda seeks, only that she and her father want her to have it more than anything, and that the gods do not agree.

They believe this magic is the only way to triumph over the Calamity. Link turns the puzzle over in his mind when he is standing guard in quiet hours. He decides that the ancients wouldn’t have built countless war machines and colossal mechanical beasts if the magic of an anointed princess and the chosen of the sword that seals the darkness were the only things that mattered.

He agrees with Zelda.

Understanding the why and how of the ancient machines will tell them more about the prophesied enemy than prayer ever will. Knowing the enemy is the second key to victory. Bearing the approval of the gods is the third.

Knowing oneself is the first.

Link knows who he is. He is a dead false hero strapped to a legendary, bloodthirsty sword. He is a weapon in the war against the Dark.

He is not at all sure Zelda knows the truth of herself.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Zelda learns to slip away from him.

Link wonders if she has help from her Sheikah friends, but he doesn’t want to ask them and risk losing their aid if he needs it later. He changes his patrol patterns. He listens to her talking to herself over her work. He asks the Master of Horse to move his mounts to the same block where hers are.

Zelda escapes anyway.

Link admires her persistence, even as he curses it.

She doesn’t curse at him when he catches up to her halfway across the country, not out loud. Her furious eyes and clipped rebukes do enough.

She could have been attacked a thousand times on the road between central Hyrule and the Tabantha Frontier. She could have been abducted or killed or even just fallen from her horse in some trackless scrubland, bleeding out and starving - and all she can think of is how _annoying_ it is that he abides his duty and follows her.

He does not let her see his anger.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Zelda sets out on the punishing journey halfway across the world to Gerudo lands with no supplies, no remounts, and no escort except two handmaidens. She does not tell Link she is leaving, but this time she doesn’t try to sneak away. She simply ignores him.

On the road she usually talks to him in the same way she talks to her books, but this time she keeps her council, muttering at her ancient slate or her notes from time to time, but barely even exchanging civilities with her own handmaidens. Link approaches one after Zelda is asleep beside the fire, asking quietly what they need. She smiles at him, and gives him a fat pouch of rupees, confiding that Zelda is at a difficult age. Link bows, and says nothing. He wonders if they forget he was her age only a year ago.

He rides to the nearest hamlet to acquire everything the handmaiden asked for, and a string of remounts besides. The farrier recognizes his sword, and her son recognizes _him_. He does not pay for even half the supplies. He catches up to the others well after noon, but he has wine in his saddlebags and a pleasant ache in his thighs that brightens the day considerably.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Zelda hears the news of increased Yiga assaults with a grave manner and perfect compassion for the wounded merchants lingering under the protection of Gerudo warriors at Kara Kara bazaar. Link spars with the guards when they are off duty, and approaches the local captains for any information they’re willing to share with an outsider.

Zelda slips away in the middle of the night.

Link tracks her to the city and the stern guards confirm her passage - but even for a Champion they will not bend their law. He prowls around the walls, collecting a hundred bruises being thrashed and dragged from the city.

Link finds the outer wall of the chief’s palace, and stands below it bellowing his fury at the desert night until one of the palace guards brings Urbosa to the terrace. She laughs, and joins him on the sands, praising his courage.

She stops laughing when he tells her _why_ he’s come to her.

Urbosa sends her personal guard to search the city, but it is too late - Zelda has already left the city and no one has any idea which direction she went or when.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Link stands in third guard between Zelda and two Yiga assassins. He tips the deadly blade towards one, then the other as blood drips from the edge to stain the sands. They both retreat a step, weighing whether they are as interested in their prey as they thought.

Link waits. He is in no hurry.

Half a minute’s delay on the desperate pursuit, and time would have lost all meaning anyway.

Zelda neither moves nor speaks, but he can feel that she is still behind him in the same way he can feel the third, very dead assassin bleeding on the burning sands.

It is enough.

 

~*~*~*~

 

The day comes that Link follows Zelda on another pilgrimage to the spring of courage, sacred to the ancient goddess Farore. It is different than following her other places, for the last day of the journey _must_ be on foot.

In the traditional gown of a sacred maiden.

In the jungle.

During a thunderstorm.

On foot.

In _sandals_.

Link decides the gods are crazy. Or else the priests are. Or both.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Zelda stands in the chill waters in prayerful vigil from sunset to dawn.

In the rain.

Link stands under the crumbling roof of the dragon-mouthed shrine, his back to the spring, the blessed sword resting in her sheath in his hands. He tries not to eavesdrop on her prayers. She would be furious at him if he did.

More furious, anyway.

He decides he prefers her fury at the offer of his cloak at dawn to watching her shiver and clench her jaw in a vain effort to stop her teeth chattering. He asks her how far it is necessary to travel from the spring to light a fire without offending the gods.

She stares at him in shock, and maybe embarrassment.

He lies, and tells her he is hungry. He asks if it is necessary for her to fast after praying the way she does before.

She laughs at him, and there is an edge of contempt in her voice when she calls him an irreverent heathen.

Link bows, and falls in behind her. He is trying to calculate the hours through Damel Forest to the stilt village of Zonai, and from there to reach a reputable healer if she starts to look feverish, and nearly runs into her when she stops at the edge of the dragon’s mouth to lean against a mossy stone tooth.

It is still raining outside.

“Here would be fine, except I left the Sheikah Slate at the stable.” Zelda laughs, thin and strained. “So there is no dry wood and no food. Sorry.”

“There is when you know how to look,” says Link.

 

~*~*~*~

 

The Sheikah researchers are training one of the larger guardian models to respond to a modified guidance stone. Zelda’s eyes shine when she sees their success, smiling for the first time since she watched him end a human life with a single stroke of the so-called blessed sword.

Link stands beside her on the walk, studying how the machine moves. It is not graceful, and it responds sluggishly, until it _decides_ to move. _Then_ it skitters with a predatory suddenness that betrays the unbridled violence of its designers.

“At the current rate, we’re soon going to know all we need to know about the guardians and divine beasts,” says Zelda, her golden voice bright with hope. “And should Calamity Ganon show itself again we will be well positioned to defend ourselves.”

Link feels her smile somewhere in his chest, and he understands in his soul why the motherline of Zeldas have ruled by claim of divine right for longer than anyone even knows.

“What are you doing out here, Zelda?”

Link does not let his stance shift. He does not know if Rhoam Bosphoramus trained in war in his youth, but there has always been something in the way the King moves that speaks of a power lurking below the surface of the old man that owes nothing to his crown or title.

“I was assessing the results of the experiment with the guardians,” says Zelda, everything cool and rational and proper. “These pieces of ancient technology can be quite useful,”

“I know that,” says the King, his hazel eyes cold and hard. “They’re essential to Hyrule’s future and our research demands we keep a close eye on them.”

Link takes a knee slowly, watching his King watch him when his daughter’s gaze drifts to the stones at her feet. The King does not choose his words without considering every possible reading of them. Link wonders how long the King has been questioning his loyalty.

“However.”

Link bows his head, because he can see what will be said next.

“As the princess you currently have a crucial unfulfilled responsibility to your kingdom. Let me ask you once more. _When will you stop treating this as some sort of childish game?_ ”

Link can see how to move. Push. Step. Rising thrust.

Simple.

He knows that the moment he draws the sword that seals the darkness his opponent is dead. It is only that it may take some moments for their body to understand.

Link hears no words. Only the despair of his princess and the dispassionate contempt of his King. It doesn’t matter what is said anymore, except that Zelda does _not_ say the two words that will allow him to rise and slay a tyrant.

 

~*~*~*~

 

On the day she tries to feed him a frog, he realizes it’s not just duty anymore. Hasn’t been in a long time. It’s happened so gradually he can’t say when it turned, but now that he notices it, he can’t bear it. He stares at the stars a long time that night, wrestling in silence with the painful knowledge that he will never be anything to her but a scapegoat, a thorn, an experiment, a piece of furniture inexplicably capable of fighting. She cares more about her ancient automatons than she ever will for him, and his heart aches in a completely terrible way.

The next time she slips away from him in the safety of a garrison town, he wraps his sword in an old scarf to hide her embroidery on the sheath, throws a dark cloak over his livery, and takes himself to the first brothel that cares more for his rupee than his age.

It doesn’t help.

He drinks until he throws up in a flowerpot, and drinks still more.

That doesn’t help either.

It is even worse the next day, when she bullies her way into the barracks to dose him with potion to soothe his stomach. Earning her pity is worse than weathering her resentment.

She mistakes his scowl as meant for her, and scolds him. Not for disrespect - not for the lapse of his duty to guard her - not for his weakness - not even for getting drunk. She scolds him for needlessly risking his health walking in a rainstorm he doesn’t even remember, and she scolds him for being too stubborn to let her give him medicine for the resulting fever.

Link answers her with a wry grin, accepting the bottle. Her golden voice pours over him, her censure sharp and clinical and rational. But the important part is she stays far longer than she has to, changing the damp cloths on his brow and advising him how he should best tend himself for a swift recovery.

There is another shrine within a day’s journey, and he needs to be well enough to ride with her to see it.

He does not hear most of the gossip she repeats _about_ the shrine because he is busy hearing her say _we_ in a way that includes him, and he is busy hearing her say she _wants_ him beside her.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Link stands at the edge of another shrine, another spring, pretending he does not hear her begging the indifferent goddess for mercy.

“Prayer will awaken my power to seal away Ganon. Or so I’ve been told. I still hear nothing,” she mourns to the cold statue.

Link hears her asking him a hundred times if he hears a voice in the blessed sword that carries him. He hears the silence where she _stopped_ asking.

It is the one common thread that binds them.

“Tell me,” cries Zelda to the night and the silent gods, bereft. “What is it? What’s wrong with me?”

Link cannot stand still. His beloved princess is weeping in a frozen spring, alone. He cannot give her the power she craves, and he cannot promise her the ancient evil will not rise exactly as the crazy fortune-teller said it would.

But he _can_ stand with her.

He can say, “Enough.”

He can lift her from the waters and cradle her to his chest and carry her through the worked stone tunnel to the open valley beyond.

He can strip off the sky-blue overtunic she wove for a man she hates and wrap her in the soft lambswool instead.

He can whistle for his feather-footed dark bay.

He can carry her away from a place men call holy.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Zelda does not want to return to the castle until the necessity of appearing at her own birthday party demands it.

Link does not make her.

He shows her the circuit he rode so many times over the last eleven years. He teaches her everything he knows about horses, having lived the better half of his life in the saddle. He teaches her how to cook over a campfire.

She confesses to him her fears for the future.

She asks him what fate he would have chosen, had the sword not chosen him.

Link stands before her in the rain, and searches for the right words to lift her spirit. He knows nothing except that he cannot tell her the truth. He offers her his hand instead.

She accepts it, surprising him. She looks up at him with green eyes full of grief.

“I regret nothing except your sorrow, dearest Princess.”

Zelda looks at him as if she expects his face to tell her his tongue weaves lies.

“I mean no disrespect, but I too have a question,” he says softly.

She nods, waiting with greater patience than he’s seen on her outside a formal appearance in a long time.

“When was the last time someone held you?”

She tips her head in charming confusion.

“My purpose begins and ends with you,” he murmurs, and he knows in that moment he speaks the most absolute truth he ever has. “How may I serve, dearest Princess?”

 

~*~*~*~

 

Afternoon on the day before Zelda’s seventeenth birthday finds them riding side by side in Sanidin Park. Her pure white stallion is placid and obedient now, and responds well to her praise and soft hands.

“Be sure to take the time to soothe your mount. That’s the only way it will know how you truly feel,” she quotes, a faint smile tugging at her sweet lips. “Your advice was quite right. Thank you. I’m trying to be a _bit_ more empathetic.”

Link grins at her, admitting to himself that he, too, enjoys her praise.

She decides at sunset that she will make full pilgrimage to the Spring of Wisdom after her birthday party. The decree of Lanayru is inflexible: no one under the age of seventeen is allowed to even attempt devotion there.

And so of course, she will walk from Hyrule Castle to the top of Mount Lanayru in the white gown and sandals of the sacred maiden on the first day it is possible to do so, all for the slender hope that the last of the three sacred springs will awaken what nothing else has.

Link assures her he will be at her side for every step of the journey.

For the first time, he sees her smile at the thought of his company.

Link feels as though the setting sun has left the sky only to take up residence in his chest. He has never felt such a thing for anyone or anything in his entire eighteen years.

He wonders distantly if the last hero to bear the ancient sword ever knew a blessing half so sublime.


	5. Lanayru Road

The romance of a pilgrimage on foot rarely lasts longer than the first blister. The devotion of the Princess would shame the most holy of priests. The King tried in vain to persuade her to wait. Link sees that his ruthless focus begins to soften at last. He cannot manage to care the cause, but if it will make Zelda happy to have the father of her childhood return, he will stand aside and keep his hand from his sword.

He appreciates that heralds are sent to the four corners of the world to summon the other Champions. They decide to walk together - except Revali, who is too proud of his aerial skill to walk any longer than it takes to make a witty comment to his ground-tethered counterparts.

Zelda recites prayers from dawn to dusk.

Link offers the gods no prayers, but he extends a silent bribe every time they stop for the night: if but _one_ of the good gods will speak to his beloved princess, he will leave offerings at the shrine of every settlement he stops in for more than an hour, and he will even think about praying on holy days.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Zelda weeps in his arms in the frigid waters of the Spring of Wisdom when the sun rises over Mount Lanayru and the gods remain silent to her plea.

Link does not have the words to comfort her, and he cannot even build a fire to warm her, for every part of the holy mountain that is not stairs and gates and prayer-tied trees is a sheer drop. It is the work of hours to guide her out of the water, and he patiently wrings out sodden linen as much as he is able with the gown still on her.

He does not hurry her down the processional stair, no matter how his stomach roars at him. He does not even watch his path. Her grief has consumed his entire world, and though he fears nothing himself, _her_ fear scours him to bone and fury.

She dreads every step into the uncertain future, and the weight of her failure to awaken any magic at all bows her proud shoulders as nothing else ever has.

All the years of strategy and tactics and bladework give him nothing at all for this battle.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Urbosa responds to Zelda’s confession with cavalier grace.

Revali is almost speechless.

Daruk frets over her sorrow like a maiden aunt.

Mipha offers the tale of her own journey on the healer’s path.

The earth shakes. Darkness rises from the direction of the capital.

Link forgets anyone else exists, catching Zelda before the trembling can make her fall.

Daruk steps in with a battle plan.

Zelda refuses to retreat with Urbosa to the desert highlands. She has little to no skill in combat, but she so desperately wants to contribute something, _anything_ that none of them can find the will to deny her right to try.

Link questions the goodness of any god less merciful.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Two days later, running through a downpour in a miserable, beleaguered forest beside Hylia River, Link questions the goodness of any gods at all. He runs with the ancient sword in one hand and Zelda’s delicate wrist in the other. He does not have a plan. He has the memory that few ancient things were uncovered east of Fort Hateno, and that exceptions had been ruthlessly scavenged by the Sheikah researchers to repair more complete machines. He has the vague thought of quiet villages on Necluda Bay that he hasn’t seen since he was a boy.

Zelda falls.

His heart stops. He turns, looking for the telltale glow of a murderous guardian machine.

“How did it come to this,” she says to the mud.

Link takes a knee before her, half listening to her despair, half listening for the approach of the enemy. She is not loud, but he does not yet know whether they hunt by sight or sound or heat. The rain is heavy enough to mask all three to most pursuers, but nothing about the ancient machines obeys mortal limits.

Zelda blames herself, and mourns her failure to harness the power they needed, and she mourns the massive waste of life that was once central Hyrule, and she mourns the probable death of the other champions.

Link desperately wants something to stab when she grieves for disappointing her _father_. Of all people.

“I’ve left them all to die,” she whispers in horror.

Link sighs, struggling to find the words that will give her the strength he needs her to have just a little longer. Just long enough. Just until he can find somewhere safe for her.

She collapses into his arms, burying her face in his tunic, sobbing.

He caresses her hair.

He tries not to count minutes.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Fort Hateno stands against the darkness.

Blatchery Plain crawls with murderous guardians blasting anything that moves. The wet grass smokes and burns, and the clicking whirring hum of war machines roars around them.

It is only another mile.

Link feels the mists calling him.

He knows he is bleeding from a hundred thousand cuts and scrapes and burns. The worst ones caught his shoulder and just above his hip, punching clear through wool and steel and flesh. The guardian eyes burn as they cut, so the blood is sluggish on the outside. Link is grateful for that. Zelda does not know what he knows about bleeding under the skin.

Link stumbles.

Zelda is babbling something ridiculous about saving himself.

Link almost tells her the truth he’s carried behind his teeth for eleven years. He is already dead. He has been dead a long time. The Great Deku surely saw his fate the day he walked into the forest, and he wants to laugh, thinking how his seven-year-old self would have answered the tale of how his body finally admitted the truth. He wonders if he will reach Fort Hateno first.

A red eye rises before him.

Link uses the sword that seals the darkness as an old man uses a stick to rise. He no longer wonders if he will reach the fort.

Zelda is screaming at him.

Blue light gathers around red.

He cannot lift the sword.

He snarls at his death looming above him, and tries to make Zelda run east by will alone.

Zelda shoves him off balance with a raw and primal cry, raising her fair hand in vain refusal of the grisly truth.

Light blossoms.

Link sways on his feet, gazing in wonder as the one thing she wants more than anything _finally_ answers her cry. A wave of heat and force shatters every guardian on the plain.

Link smiles at her back as he falls, satisfied. He has served his purpose.

She doesn’t need a knight anymore.


	6. Going Home

Darkness is a warm and comfortable thing.

Somewhere in the darkness, a voice made of light calls his name.

He does not answer. The dead do not speak.

He feels the mists begin to bleed away from him. He does not mind. The darkness flows in to fill the places where the mists used to call to him.

The darkness is quiet except for the tiny voice made of light, but it grows ever more distant. He looks forward to the silence which will follow. He embraces the warm, weightless dark.

He gives the memory of pain to the darkness, and the darkness gives him more of itself. He gives the battle and defeat to the darkness, and the last time he ate dinner at his mother’s table, and what sunset feels like.

He feels like a sodden cloak hung to dry, and every thought moving through him is water falling into the abyss, never to return.

He cannot hear the voice anymore.

He cannot remember what a voice is or why he would want it.

He cannot remember what wanting means.

He feels the memory of tears, but he cannot make sense of what that hollow, echoey feeling  _means_. He cannot wrap words or colors or shapes or sounds around anything.

And then that, too, begins to fall away, leaving only the vague sense that once there was something that was _not_ darkness.

There _is_ no land for the dead. All is darkness.

Comfortable, warm, empty, silent darkness.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Darkness holds him in a slow dizzy spiral. A tiny voice echoes inside the darkness that is himself, but it also seems to come from the darkness that is not himself.

 _Open your eyes_ , she says.

Link does not know what eyes are or opening, but there is light in the darkness, and it hurts. He moves away from it, awkward and weak and stumbling after the fleeting darkness.

He is wet and noise and mist and pain, and he wants the simple darkness back.

He hits a wall made of darkness and pinpricks of spangled light. He touches it, staring in wonder at his own hand, familiar and strange and not the shadows he is supposed to be.

He turns, confused by the brighter blue-white light above and dimmer lights before him, surrounded by more _strange_ darkness with pinprick lights scattered all over.

“Stars,” he says, his tongue heavy and dry and clumsy, but he hears the word, and knows it is the right one.

He feels as though the light smiles. This light seems gold instead of blue-white, small and distant and strange - and he is not even sure what gold is, or what a smile is, except that he wants it.

He follows that feeling through the star-spangled mist.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Years later he stands before the sunset with an ancient sword in his hand and sky-blue lambswool over his fine chainmail, watching a woman made of golden light descend onto a green field. The pain and the confusion and the years of toil and the nightmares of a shattered past and the strange black-magenta ichor dripping from his blade cease to matter. He watches her destroy a primal horror with a calm gesture that in any other context he would call _peace_.

And yet.

She is shy when she turns to him, her green eyes shining. “May I ask? Do you really remember me?”

Link feels her voice in his bones. He feels like he should take a knee before her glory. He feels a deep and abiding need to hold her to his chest and assure himself that she is real.

He strikes the ichor from the blade and returns it to its sheath. He wants to open his arms to her, but he hesitates. He is afraid of the consequence as he has feared nothing else. It takes every drop of courage in his blood just to open his mouth. 

“You were the one thing I wanted to remember.”

 

 

~*~*~*~

 

_**Fin** _

**Author's Note:**

> Followed by  Ever Fix’d Mark  and by [ Naught So Vile ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19187317). ~~Will probably lump it under a series later.~~
> 
> Like I need another project. Feh.


End file.
